Missouri Governor Commutes Sentence of Detective Convicted in On-Duty Killing

Gov. Mike Parson of Missouri commuted the sentence on Friday of a former police detective who was convicted of manslaughter in a 2019 shooting, an extraordinary intervention in a rare case that sent a police officer to prison for an on-duty killing. The former detective, from the Kansas City, Mo., department, had been released from prison on parole by Friday evening, an official said.

Many Democratic leaders and civil rights activists in Kansas City had feared that the governor might grant clemency and discouraged him from doing so. But clemency had come to feel inevitable after both Mr. Parson, a Republican, and the man who will succeed him in January, Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, who is also a Republican, voiced concerns about the conviction.

The conviction in 2021 of the former detective, Eric J. DeValkenaere, on charges of second-degree involuntary manslaughter and armed criminal action exposed longstanding divides in Missouri, which has been at the center of some of the country’s most painful conversations about race and policing.

Mr. DeValkenaere, who is white, fatally shot Cameron Lamb, a 26-year-old Black man, as Mr. Lamb was backing into his garage on Dec. 3, 2019. Supporters of the detective urged Mr. Parson, a former sheriff, to grant clemency. But in heavily Democratic Kansas City, the state’s largest municipality, some warned that clemency would be seen as evidence of a two-tiered justice system.

Officials in Mr. Parson’s office declined to answer questions about the commutation, including whether the governor had been in touch with Mr. Lamb’s family.

“In Missouri, clemency powers rest exclusively with the governor,” Johnathan Shiflett, a spokesman for Mr. Parson, said in a statement. “After careful consideration, Governor Parson today exercised his constitutional authority on a number of final pending clemency petitions.”